Normally, Cole could size up the most complex situations in a matter of minutes. Tonight, he couldn’t seem to second-guess the intentions of his own wife. Frowning, he went into his bedroom, intending to take a shower. He pulled off his shirt and belatedly remembered he’d taken a shower an hour before she got here. Now he was acting like a nervous bride.
He went back to the kitchen, dumped out the iced tea, and decided to have a drink instead. He carried it onto the porch and stretched out on the double chaise.
He knew damned well Diana wanted him.
They were attracted to each other. Wildly attracted.
He’d offered to let her make the decision. She was either having a hard time making one—or she’d made one he wasn’t going to like and was trying to avoid telling him.
The stars came out, one by one, and the sky darkened until they twinkled like bright jeweled paths across the sky.
In the guest bedroom, Diana finished brushing her hair at the dresser and debated over what to wear. It was really too early to be in a robe, not to mention transparently suggestive. She decided to put on a pair of white shorts and a bright green silk shirt instead. Cole was probably expecting her to appear in something filmy and revealing. A negligee. Something fragile and lacy.
She put on a touch of lipstick and thought of Cole expecting a replay of their wedding night, only much more so, and her hand trembled so hard she dropped the lipstick tube. She’d been so intoxicated then that she hadn’t known where, or who, she was, but she knew now, and her stomach cramped with nervous uncertainty.
What was she doing, letting herself in for this! She picked up the brush and brushed her hair again. Husband or not, Cole was a stranger. An unknown entity who stepped over barriers the size of mountains without qualm or difficulty and showed no concern for repercussions.
She was concerned enough for both of them. There was no point in denying that after he had left Houston, she had thought of him a thousand times a day, and every thought was sweeter than the last one. And there was no denying that the idea of “honeymooning” here with him had made her knees weak and still did. But now that she was here, there was something wrong with the picture. Although they were legally married, it was clearly understood between them that was temporary. So what Cole had actually suggested in Houston was that they compound and complicate the farce by indulging in an orgy of sex for a week.
When he presented the idea, he had offered it as a suggestion and left the decision to her. She had decided to do it.
Now that she was here, it was obvious he’d made assumptions, acted on them, and intended to have things his way. She decided not to do it. At least, certainly not tonight.
She was not going to relinquish control. She liked being in control of her life, her present, her future, and she normally handled it very well. Except when Cole got involved, and then he turned everything upside down. It was a pattern that needed to stop. It was a lesson he needed to learn.
Emboldened by that resolve, Diana put the hairbrush on the dresser and left the guest bedroom.
The rest of the house was dark, but the light was on in Cole’s room, and she assumed he was showering, so she decided to wait for him on the porch.
She walked outside and closed the door behind her; then she walked over to the railing, looking out at the hills bathed in moonlight. She’d been standing there a full minute when a low-pitched, seductive voice said, “Would you like to join me?”
Diana whirled around. He was stretched out on the longue, wearing loafers and pants, but his chest was bare, and in her state of mind, the fact that he’d taken off his shirt struck Diana as a deliberately provocative maneuver.
Her gaze riveted on the bronzed skin that covered an acre of muscled chest and sinewed shoulders; then it shifted nervously to his eyes. He wanted her to join him on the chaise. He’d been out here waiting for her. Her treacherous heart began to beat a little faster.
Very firmly, Diana reminded herself of her decision. “I don’t think so,” she said with a smile that made her refusal seem, unintentionally but distinctly, flippant and blasé. Unable to fix that, she stayed with it. “I think I’ll get a glass of lemonade, though.”
As she walked past Cole’s chaise, he caught her hand and forced her to stop and turn. In silence, he studied her face as if he were searching for an answer, and while she was distracted by that, he was slowly pulling her forward. His tone was so gentle that it disturbed her balance as much as his action. “Don’t play games with me, Kitten.” He took her other arm and tugged.
Diana landed on top of him, her forehead at his chin, his left hand on her upper arm. Bracing her palms beside his shoulders, she levered her chest off of his and stared at him in irate disbelief. His right hand lifted, and his knuckles stroked softly up her bare arm in a patient caress while his gaze held hers. The message in those compelling gray eyes was as clear as if he were whispering it: Make up your mind.
Diana gazed at the sensual mouth only inches from hers. Inviting mouth. Tender smile. Make up your mind.
Without volition, her lips moved closer to his, and her heart began to race with excitement. Decide.
Her eyes drifted closed, and her breath came out in a sigh. She kissed him softly and felt his lips answer, moving on hers, moving with them, while his hands slid up her arms and tightened. She broke the kiss, and he let her, but the body beneath hers was hardening and the gray eyes were beginning to smolder. He laid his palm against her cheek, slowing running it back, curving it around her nape, urging her closer. Again.
Her arms went weak, and her breasts flattened against his hard chest as his mouth opened on hers in a deep, hungry kiss. His fingers shoved into her hair, holding her mouth imprisoned, while his arm slanted over her hips and he rolled her onto her side, leaning over her.
His tongue tasted and urged and slowly drove into her mouth while his thighs pressed into her. Rigid thighs. Demanding.
Her hands pressed him closer; her body strained nearer. He tore his mouth from hers long enough to unbutton her shirt and spread it open, and what he saw nudged him another step closer to the edge. Pert nipples hardened to tight buds tipped two exquisite pale globes that were in perfect proportion to the rest of her.
He touched the nipple and it tightened more. He bent his head and kissed it, and she moaned aloud and arched her back in a burst of pleasure that startled him with its intensity. Trying to slow himself down, he kissed the other nipple, drawing it into his mouth, and her fingers tightened reflexively in his hair, her back arching higher.
Stimulated by the expression of her pleasure, his body surged in an urgent desire to do more. With an effort, he made himself slow down and rolled her back on top of him. To his surprise, she pulled her shirt closed and started to get up. He stopped her at the exact moment when she was straddling his erection.
Diana thought she knew exactly why he’d slowed down. She bent her head to avoid his gaze and self-consciously started to button her shirt over her small breasts.
A hoarse word stilled her fingers. “Don’t!”
Her gaze snapped to his, her hands holding the edges of her shirt closed. Cole pulled her hands away so that he could see. “Beautiful,” he whispered, spreading her shirt all the way off her shoulders. He cupped his palms over her breasts, caressing them.
Diana’s heart began to thunder with a mixture of shock, embarrassment, and exquisite pleasure.
Cole was so attuned to her that his own heart began to hammer, and he suddenly realized that he was actually feeling her reactions in his body. He rubbed his thumbs over her nipples and his own nipples hardened. “Touch me,” he whispered to her, half afraid of what would happen when she did.
The shaken sound of his voice made Diana’s hands tremble as she bent low over him and covered his nipple with her lips, teasing it with her tongue. When he drew in his breath sharply, Diana felt the sudden jerk of his hips beneath her as if he were inside her, and suddenly she was yanked forward onto the chaise and
immediately was pinned beneath him. Together they were caressing hands and eager mouths and urgent limbs shedding clothes to give more pleasure.
Her breasts were beautiful, his body a sculpture, he was master, he was enslaved. His groan was her music and her sigh his benediction. They clung together unmoving, while her body welcomed the slow thrusting heat of him, and what began as a gentle rocking became fierce, demanding thrusts. She strained toward him in trembling need and he drove into her again and again in a desperate desire to take her with him all the way. She cried out and held him when she found it, and he joined her there.
Afterward, as she lay crushed tightly in his arms, the tears falling softly on his chest were hers. He felt them there as he stared beyond, where stars once bright and clear wavered and shimmered before gray eyes now strangely blurry.
He closed his eyes and knelt beneath the heavens, head bowed.
He offered bargains, bribes, and promises.
And when no answer came, he whispered fiercely, “Please.”
He laid his hand against her wet cheek; she turned her face into his palm. “I love you,” she whispered.
He was blessed.
* * *
Lying in the king-size bed with her head resting on his chest, Diana smiled in the darkness as she waited for Cole to say something. She had a very strong suspicion he was, at that very moment, calmly reinventing the rest of her life, and probably with the same forcefulness and speed he had handled matters thus far.
She was intensely curious as to how he would try to navigate around some of the obstacles to their fledgling marriage. He loved her and she loved him, which was all that truly mattered, but there were some little complications. She counted them off in her mind:
She lived in Houston and ran a big business there.
He lived in Dallas and ran an even bigger business there.
She wanted to bear his children.
He didn’t want children.
Obviously, she decided as she traced the line of a hard muscle over his rib cage, this was going to take more than navigation; it was going to take a miracle.
Closing her eyes, she decided to count on one more of those. She dozed, and when she awoke a few minutes later, the little lamp on the night table was on. His fingers were threaded through hers and he was holding her hand. “I’ve been thinking,” he said tenderly, “and I’ve arrived at some conclusions.”
She smiled to herself at that unsurprising announcement. She could not seem to stop smiling. Turning her face up to his, she braced herself to find out how far he’d taken the decision-making process without consulting her.
“We have a logistics problem,” Cole began. He saw her eyes begin to shine with laughter, and he cuddled her closer. He could not be close enough to her. “I think you’ll have to move to Dallas, darling. I can’t move Unified to Houston. It’s a bad idea for several reasons, not to mention fiscally suicidal.”
She feigned a sigh. “Under the terms of our original agreement, we’re to maintain separate residences in the two cities. That was the deal.”
Cole thought she was serious. “That’s impossible.”
“That was our agreement. We had an iron-clad verbal agreement.”
He brushed that aside with amused male arrogance. “You can’t have an iron-clad verbal agreement. It’s a complete contradiction in terms.”
“So all bets are off?”
Cole looked down sharply, studying the deceptive innocence of wide jade eyes fringed in long russet lashes beneath gracefully winged brows. “Diana,” he whispered, “you are beautiful. And you are getting at something. What is it?”
“I would be willing to move the administrative and business divisions of Foster Enterprises to Dallas and leave the art and production staff in Houston under Corey.”
“Then that settles everything,” he said with satisfaction, bending his head to kiss her. His body was already thrilling to the idea of making love to her again.
She splayed her fingers and ran her hand down the plane of his stomach, her eyes turning hopeful and full of appeal.
“Whatever it is you’re asking for with that look in your eyes,” Cole said mildly, “the answer is yes.”
“I’m asking for babies. Your babies.”
He tipped his chin down, frowning warily. “How many?”
Her smile dawned like sunshine, her eyes sparkled like the eight-carat oval diamond he’d slipped on her finger while she dozed. He’d brought the ring here, hoping this would happen. No, he’d never dared to hope this would happen.
“I’d like three children,” she replied.
“One,” he countered sternly.
She looked at him. “I’ll give you Park Place and Boardwalk and all my rental properties if I can have two.”
“Done!” he said with a chuckle.
Chapter 49
CAL’S FRONT DOOR WAS OPEN, so Diana went on inside. Cole had let her sleep late and had left her a note to come down to Cal’s when she was up. She could hear Cal talking to Cole in the kitchen while Letty served breakfast. “Was I wrong not to tell you before?”
“No,” Cole said flatly. “And now that you’ve told me, I couldn’t care less.”
Cal sounded relieved. “Do you mind doing those errands for me? You could stop by the old place and see if there’s anything you want. It’s on your way.”
Diana walked into the kitchen, just as Cole added in a chilly voice, “I remember where it is.”
They were sitting at the table, and Cal gave her a quick smile of greeting; then he returned his full attention to the discussion under way. Diana moved around the table to help Letty carry plates of scrambled eggs and biscuits smothered with white country gravy to the table. “You remember where what is?” she asked.
“My ancestral home.” There was a snide, toneless quality to his voice when he said that, and Diana noticed it as she put one hand on his shoulder and leaned around him with his plate. “I’ll go with you. I’d love to see it.”
“No!” he said so sharply that Diana paused as she put the plate in front of him. He apologized for his tone by reaching up and catching her hand, pressing it to his shoulder for a moment.
The two men waited until Diana slid into her chair; then Cal picked up his cause again, and Diana had a glimpse of where Cole had gotten his tenacity. “If you’d read something besides financial statements and stock prospectuses once in a while, you’d know about grieving and getting resolution after a loss. Deal with it now or deal with it later, that’s what the psychologists say. It’s right there in the living room in books and magazine articles written by the experts.”
“Last year,” Cole said wryly to Diana, “he was on a campaign to have me ‘get in touch with my feminine side.’ ”
Diana choked on her coffee.
She had already gathered that someone who lived in the general area had died, but since Cole seemed completely indifferent to the person’s death, she didn’t pursue the subject. Moreover, when Cal tried to return to the topic again, Cole said tersely, “I do not want this subject discussed in front of Diana.”
Cole left right after breakfast to do a series of errands for Cal in town that he expected to take two hours at most, but he insisted that Diana stay with Cal. When he got up from the table, he rumpled her hair, leaned down, and pressed a kiss to her cheek, then walked forward . . . without letting go of her wrist. Laughing, Diana was hauled out of the house onto the porch, soundly kissed, then sent back inside.
Cal observed the little vignette with an expression that struck Diana as somber at best and disapproving at worst. Feeling a little hurt and a little self-conscious, she walked over to the fireplace mantel, where framed pictures, mostly quite old, were lined up in rows. With her hands linked behind her back, she studied each one, while Cal’s gaze bored through her from behind.
“Is this Cole?” She lifted a frame off the mantel, brought it over to the sofa, and sat down beside him.
He flicked a glance at the p
icture and then pinned her with a look that was disturbing and was meant to be. “Why don’t you and I have a little talk about something besides pictures,” he said in a no-nonsense tone that proved two things very clearly: Calvin Downing was far more astute than he seemed, and he was no pushover.
“What,” Diana said warily, “do you want to talk about?”
“You and Cole. That all right with you?”
She nodded, and he said, “Good, because we were going to do it anyway.”
Diana was not a pushover either. “Mr. Downing, maybe we’ll wait until Cole comes back.”
Oddly her tart retort did not offend him. “You got more than looks. You got spunk, too, and that’s good. Now, do you have a heart?”
“What!”
“And if you do have one, who does it belong to?”
Diana stared at him, riveted by the topic if not his tone. “I don’t understand.”
“Well, I’ll grant you, it’s a little complicated to me, too. Because less than two weeks ago, I picked up the Enquirer, and there was your picture, smack dab on the front page, with a story that says you got jilted by your fancy beau. A week later, you’re married to my nephew, Cole.”
Five days ago, she’d have been humiliated by the mere mention of that article. Instead a wayward smile curved her lips. “Well, yes,” she admitted, “I can see how that would look a little odd.”
“That’s the only part makes sense,” he contradicted bluntly. “Cole was mad and I showed him the picture to make a point, and I figured he made a point right back by marrying you to get his stock back. But then he told me you’re the little girl he used to talk about when he was in college, and I remembered your name was Diana Foster, so I know it’s really you. Are you following me?”
“So far, yes.”
“Okay. So I figured the two of you are old friends, and you just got jilted, and Cole needed a wife to get his stock back—so you two struck a deal. How am I doing so far?”
Diana eyed him askance. “Pretty well,” she admitted with a trembling smile.